The week after the exhilarating, chaotic, beautiful victory against Aston Villa was a strange, liminal space, a collective intake of breath before the plunge. The upcoming clash with Arsenal, our North London rivals, loomed large on the horizon, a monolithic fixture that would be a true barometer of our progress, a genuine test of our title credentials.
The training sessions were lighter, more focused on recovery and tactical preparation than on the lung-bursting, leg-burning intensity of the previous weeks.
Rebecca had the players on a strict recovery protocol, her team of sports scientists monitoring their every move, their every calorie, their every hour of sleep.
Sarah and I spent hours in the war room, poring over footage of Arsenal's recent matches, dissecting their strengths, their weaknesses, their patterns of play. They were a formidable side, a slick, technical, well-drilled unit that was a mirror image of their senior team's philosophy.
